


Bellis Perennis

by lilacnightmares



Series: Flowers of Paradise [15]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Another Story (Mystic Messenger), Bittersweet Ending, Constructive Criticism unwanted, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Explosions, F/M, Flashbacks, Introspection, Mild Gore, Not Beta Read, Oneshot, POV Multiple, Panic Attack, Scars, Suicidal Thoughts, V After Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27963560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacnightmares/pseuds/lilacnightmares
Summary: The desperation in his eyes as the alarm blared around them warned him that if nothing changed soon, they would both be damned to the same fate. He had to do something to save her, and yet, all he could think about at that moment was how no matter much he fought to stop it, it had been designed to be unstoppable.Based on V's After Ending. A standalone fic that can read without reading any of the other stories in the series.
Relationships: Choi Saeran/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Flowers of Paradise [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1271537
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Bellis Perennis

  
  


“You… you can’t be here—”

His voice is panicked, drawn back only by the ticking counter behind him that warns him that there’s not much time left. There was no one else left here in the building, he had made sure of that, but he never thought that Lila would be able to make her way to him. 

He hadn’t thought she would. She had been up and taken away from him. Ray still wasn’t sure if she had done it because she wanted to get away from him or if they had taken her away from him. It was the fear and notion that she had left him because she secretly couldn’t stand him and she had pitied him this entire time that made him…

Well, it made him listen to his Savior’s orders and hit the switch.

It also made him stay.

Her chest rose and fell with a quickened haste as if she’d run here on foot, and her digits clutched the doorframe. She was here, this wasn’t a dream, nor was it a memory, that was her and she was standing here with him in the middle of Magenta. In the direct center of a bomb.

_ With him. _

Not with  _ V _ .

Not with the  _ Liar. _

She was  _ here _ . She was here with him in the middle of Mint Eye, and that wasn’t good. This wasn’t good, as happy as his heart was to see her face in front of him, he realized far too fast that this was dangerous. There wasn’t enough time to get out of the room much less the building, and he wasn’t sure that he could stop it once it started.

It was a failsafe. 

He couldn’t rip his eyes away from her but his trembling fingers began to gnash against the keys to try and undo the countdown. She had to go. She couldn’t be here with him. The relief that had flooded his body was wrong.

“Ray, you can’t say goodbye,” she pleaded, doe brown eyes fraught with heavy tears. Her voice was still rasped but he heard it. “You can’t just tell me you love me and hang up. You can’t do that! You can’t tell me goodbye and act like it’s the end of all of this! You didn’t even listen to me! I was trying to tell you I love you too!”

No.

_ No. _

He was so happy to hear her say those words, the words that he had long imagined whispered from her lips into his ears, but it was dangerously too late for him to set things right. His own heart had started to race, forcing his body to work as he spun around, fingers pressing so hard against the keys in a force so desperate.

It didn’t matter if she loved him if they were  _ dead! _

“You can't—” He said, once again, mind not making sense anymore, the words all confuddled and warning him to focus on the keys, to focus on the bomb, to turn it off before it was too late and he damned her to hell with him. His sins weren’t hers to carry. 

“You need to leave!” 

His words are nonsensical, broken, but he needs to focus. He can’t let her die with him. He would not let her die with him. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. That was why he desperately called her to say goodbye. She was supposed to live on and be happy without him. She wasn’t supposed to come back for him cause he had accepted she was gone.

Lila was meant to be far into the world away from this place.

This wasn’t happening, he tried to reason with himself, but the dread pooling in his gut told him that it was very real. 

In midst of his panic, she’s traversed the room and made it to his side as the haunting red lights gave a flash that signaled the end. Her hands clutched against his sleeve, and he tried to force himself to focus but when his eyes snapped back to the computer, it warned him that the timer was getting lower and lower and lower. 

“Lila,  _ please _ !” 

He couldn’t stop. 

Ray couldn’t let this happen. 

“I’m not leaving you, Ray,” her voice lingered but remained firm as she stayed close to him. “Please, you can be happy, you can live a life where you’re free,  _ with me _ if you want, but you can’t! You can’t just say you’re going to leave this world without even trying to live—”

Ray shook his head, over and over, but the ticking only grew louder in his ears to warn him of what was to come within moments. “You have to go! Lila, there’s a bomb, that's— that’s why I was trying to— to tell you to remember me— there’s not much time left, I—I can't— Fuck! I can’t stop it, I can’t stop it!”

Her hand’s grip momentarily faltered against his, and the sound of her gentle gasp told him all that he needed to know. It was futile and she knew that. He knew it. He couldn’t stop it. There wasn’t at all enough time to run. He had made it so that it couldn’t be stopped once it started, he hadn’t had the time to implement a system where there was a fail-safe.

The blackness of his anxiety warned him that he was going to pass out if he didn’t breathe in his next gasp of breath more clearly. 

He hadn’t had the time.

He thought there would be  _ more  _ time.

This was all his fault, if only he hadn’t been such a screw-up, if only he had tried harder, if only he had listened to Lila and tried to listen to what she wanted, if only he had left with the rest of the believers, and all the rest of the possibilities of his shame flurried to his mind like an angry flock of crows to the slaughter. 

_ All Ray’s fault, _ he thought. 

His breath ragged, those hot tears of guilt starting to build up. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, forgive me, I can’t, I can’t stop— I never meant to curse you to this fate! Please, run while you can, I’ll try to stall it for as I can— I can’t stop it but, but maybe I can slow it enough—enough—”

“Ray,” her voice, shakey as it was, seemed resolute and firm. He turned his head to look at her, at the way her tender eyes always looked at him with such a fondness that it felt like bliss could be within his reach if he wanted it to be in his grasp. She wasn’t panicking like he was, no, there was a strange sort of calmness in her eyes. “It’s okay.”

“No, no, no—” he gasped. He shook his head furiously. “Lila, please, leave me. I’m always alone. I’m okay with being alone in the end, that’s how I always thought it would be. It’s not okay, you don’t have to stay here. Go, run away from this place, please, I’m begging you!”

It wasn’t okay. He knew it wasn’t okay. But, she seemed okay with that. She took hold of his hand and squeezed it tight. Why was she okay with this? Why wasn’t she trying to abandon him like the rest of the world? He wouldn’t have blamed her if she did and he would never hate her for it. 

It was what he wanted her to do. 

He wanted her to live. 

“It’s okay, Ray,” she repeated, the numbers in the background dangerously plummeting lower and lower to zero as she spoke to him. The flash of red from the emergency lights flashed once more around them. “We’re together. That’s the only place that I want to be. I want to be with you. I want to be with you no matter what. I don’t belong anywhere else. It’s okay.”

She rested her hand on top of his as it rested against the keyboard. She stopped him typing anymore, but he couldn’t even feel his fingers trembling against the keys anymore. He couldn’t do it. There was no stopping it. Why was he fighting it? He turned his head to look away from the monitor and back at her instead. 

“...” 

She had been taken from him by those that he detested the most in the heat of his Savior’s weakness, and she would’ve been safe there even though he never would be. Yet, she ran back to this place to his arms when she knew that his call implied the worst. He thought that she would be gone forever yet here she was with him.

Ray didn’t have the right to do so now after all that he had done, but he still wrapped his arms tightly around her small frame. She was allowing him this. She had chosen to come to him at the end of all things. Was it okay for him to think that even in the end, her heart touched him in ways that he would never understand?

Ray desperately held her close to him. If this was all that he could have in the end, he was okay with that. He just wished that he could have given her the happiness she deserved, and maybe, just maybe… somewhere in giving her life that she deserved, he could discover true happiness for himself along the way. 

“We’re together,” she repeated once more.

Ray wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself or him. 

There were so many things that he could say, but it was likely that none of them would be enough… nor would it add more to their situation or change anything. Simply so, he just couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Even if it was the end, even if this was the very last time that they would be together in this life, at the very least—

“Yeah,” he managed to bring himself to say despite the bile that gnashed at the back of his throat like a wildfire. His eyes felt as though he were drowning in his tears. Whether they were miserable tears or happy tears, he did not know. “We’re… together, just like I always wanted.”

“I won’t leave you behind.” She whispered to him in a low voice, as it was only meant for his ears and no one else’s. “I made a promise to you that I would never leave you behind, remember? I came back to you because I never wanted to leave you in the first place. I’m happy that I’m with you. This is what I’ve always wanted, Ray.”

He choked back a sob but it was futile. He knew that he was sobbing now and so was she, and even if it was the last time, it was okay. It was okay because it  _ wasn’t  _ okay and the fact alone that she had chosen to stay with him in the end.

“You’re my only love,” he whimpered. “My first, and my last.”

“In this life and the next,” She murmured. her grip on him tightened impossibly so as if letting him go would make things worse, just as the ticking of the counter that was behind them reached a resounding note of zero. The robotic voice of the computer chimed to indicate that it was time’s up. There was the echo of a sound that he couldn’t describe, a crunch, a snap, a sizzle, and then nothing—

Nothing but the blanket of darkness surrounded him. 

—

Ray felt her hand tremble in his grasp. It was a small tremor but it was a nervous tic all the same that he couldn’t ignore. She had always been not all that excited at the prospect of facing anyone, especially the RFA as she abandoned all of them at the last second to go and find the hacker and disappeared without a trace.

It wasn’t like she’d chosen to leave Mint Eye with them of her own accord, they didn’t give her the choice to decide. 

She just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time for Seven to swoop him with his partner and take her away alongside V. She had tried to convince them to save Ray but they didn’t have the time, and she struggled with that guilt even though she felt like she made the right choice in going back for him after he called her in a flurry. 

Even though it had seemingly damned the two of them to some significant wounds in the process, she had been okay with that.

Her fingers had dug into the fabric of her coat as they spoke, seemingly for the last time, and then everything went up in smoke. Ray couldn’t at all remember the time when he slipped in and out of consciousness but he could remember the fear in his heart when he couldn’t feel her warmth by him anymore and he found himself staring deep into mint eyes that had damned them in the first place.

His voice had been gone, but he felt his body and mind scream in anguish as he seemingly tried to figure out if he was in Hell or Heaven. Was he to live being in adulterated agony, seeing the rubble moved from his form by the person that had just caused him to hit the switch?

—

Ray had accepted that this was his end. He had accepted that it was the end but in those finals seconds he had tried to compel himself to remember everything about Lila so that in his next life, perhaps, he’d be able to remember something about her scent or the freckles that danced over her cheeks like she’d been kissed by the sunlight.  His eyes were blurry with tears and he couldn’t even distinguish her features in the flood of water but he did know the sound of her voice. Right before he felt his vision go dark and pain enveloped every part of his body, he accepted that this would be the last time that he would have the chance to be close to Lila. 

That was why he couldn't die without letting her know the truth of his heart. She needed to know how he felt, as selfish as that was, but he needed her to know how much he adored her and cherished her smile. Even if everyone forgot about him and the world continued to spin on its axis, he knew that in her memory, he may have lived on.

But, the universe was cruel to his love and himself. It was as if they were fated to be star-crossed lovers from the start. They were meant to grasp at the starlight but the second they tasted it, it was their punishment to burst like a supernova and perish from the universe together. He deserved it, but he never thought she did. 

Even though the darkness welcomed him in its warm embrace, he felt himself drifting between agony and numbness. He supposed that was to be expected, his heart had always doubted that he would ever touch heaven. Hell would be for him if he wasn’t born anew, a punishment for someone who damned his love to death.

If this was hell, it was well earned. 

If this was the price of his crimes till the end of time, he wished that he could take it all back. He wished that he had fought harder for her and fought harder for himself, but he was so weak at the last moment that he accepted this end. He accepted the pain as punishment for what he had done and he could only pray to the darkness that she wasn’t suffering. 

He prayed she left before the burn erupted. 

Now that he was breathing in every breath with the taste of fire, ash, and brimstone, all he wanted to do was wipe away that choice and beg for forgiveness. There was no changing what he had done so he had to accept the pain that took hold of his body with no remorse. 

Ray wanted to scream and lash out from the pain but he felt trapped, his breath struggling to make even and the excruciating stupor that he found himself lost in only stroked the misery he was feeling. Was this his punishment? Was this what he earned? Was this all his life had been leading to? Was this all it meant? 

What a joke. 

This was the worst feeling that he had ever experienced in his entire life, even from the burn of the elixir in his veins and the feeling of a rope digging into the skin of his ankles and wrists by the women he had been entrusted to. This was nothing compared to that pain. If it was hell, it was the hell that he would suffer forever with no reprieve. 

All that Ray could think of was the pain. 

Only the pain. 

_ Just the pain.  _

He wasn’t sure how long he was enveloped in the darkness or how long he felt like he was awake to the misery only to pass out again before it started all over again. He would cycle in and out of the burning pain over and over again with no second to breathe. 

His life had been a cruel joke, hadn’t it?

He was pleading to whatever God that existed in this universe to please give him mercy. End his suffering. End it all. Wipe him from existence from this place forever, he would rather be nothing than suffering from something like this. His croaked pleas fell on no one at all, just as he knew that they would. 

Of course, they did. 

This was his fate and this was his eternity. 

Somewhere amid his cloudy hazy more and more light started to flood his vision. 

It confused him, but he could nothing but stare with bleary eyes at the note of sunlight. The blue sky became visible, but he couldn’t move his body, as if it was a cruel trick played on him by the vengeful God that hated him from the moment he breathed. 

Giving him a taste of what he could never see but always craved to have. 

_ That blue sky.  _

His breath hurt whenever he sucked in, shallow and sharp, trying to keep it short as he could to avoid the feeling of his lungs filled with soot and ash. He stared at the sky, and then, something changed. The time that he had been trapped within started to fade. His darkness faded, the pain didn’t leave, but the weight pressed on top of him started to fade. 

Something touched him, something brushed against his arm and it made him mentally flinch. His body was too exhausted to fight against the hell he belonged in. 

And that’s when Ray heard it. 

“Oh, no, oh, no, no.” 

This is worse than suffocating on ash. He couldn’t make out the voice that was speaking to him but it didn’t sound like her voice. But, why did he expect to hear Lila’s voice, anyway? Oh, Ray’s brain began to twist and turn, because he thought that he deserved her love and light after what he had done. She would be an angel. 

He would be damned to hell. 

“You’re okay, you’re going to be okay,” he could hear a voice, but it sounded like it was underneath the surface of the water. “Please, hang on, please, stay with me. You’re alive, you have to stay with me, do not fall asleep, Saeran!”

When he felt tears splash against his cheek, that’s when the cogs in his brain realized that his agony was because he wasn’t dead, nor was the blue sky a trick by God. The burning in his lungs and the pain in his body was too real for him to be a spirit in agony. The numbness that he had felt now dared to burn into an open wound as he became aware of the full cost. 

Alive? 

Ray stared at the man that had once been his guardian, the terror written in his bleary eyes as he forced himself to sit upright as V urged him to stop. He looked behind the man and saw the rubble and the ash from the building that had been blown to pieces all around them. 

It had been destroyed and put to the ground in a matter of seconds. The bomb had worked. But it hadn’t worked because he was alive! 

“Saeran, don’t, you’re injured—” V pressed but Ray managed to lift an aching hand to stop him from being touched. He couldn’t move his left side but he could move the right. That wasn’t his name and this man—! 

His breath was ragged as he looked around, the desperation growing, his voice sounded unfamiliar to him as he rasped, “Lila—” he forced himself to cry out but it was pathetic. “Where— Where’s Lila— please, where—”

The wind whistled and as it hit his skin, it felt like a hot razor. He winced and tried to ignore the pain but it demanded his attention. He had failed at even trying to remove himself from this world and he was alive. He failed everything he ever set out to try, even killing himself, and—

Ray whipped his head back to look at the man, looking like a wild animal cornered once again, as if the man held the answer to his questions. V didn’t say anything, just that pathetic look of guilt crossed his face as his vision settled on something beyond Ray’s vision. He forced himself to follow those damned mint eyes until he was staring at… 

No, no, no, no, no—!

His light, his angel, his world… 

_ Lila. _ He tried to move over to her but his body screamed at him for trying, and he felt a piercing but muffled cry surround him but he didn’t know if that voice belonged to him anymore. She was laying there amongst the rubble with her body crumpled into a heap. Her right side was exposed to him and he felt the bile looming in his throat.  A fire had scorched her skin and left it looking raw in the area around her eye and neck. She was injured, but his vision was too blurry to see if she was moving, or if she was breathing, all he could fixate on was an injury that encompassed the sun-kissed cheeks that he adored. 

She was Icarius... and he was the sun.

“No…!” 

No, no, no, no, no—!

This was hell. 

This was his hell. 

_ Let me die, let me die, let me die,  _ he pleaded once more with the universe. He pleaded with God to kill him as well. 

Panic scourged his veins and he felt the pain and the dread beginning to pool together into a fit of anger and fear. He wanted to scream, he wanted to lash out, he wanted to— He didn’t know what he wanted to do apart from scream at the man that had caused all of this. If he was alive, if he was kicking and breathing, that meant that Lila was dead. 

Lila was dead. 

Lila was dead and it was all his fault—

He was alive and she—

All his suffering, all this pain—

It was their fault! 

It was his fault! 

_ Make it stop.  _

_ Make it STOP! _

Ray wanted to scream to make it all end, the pain, the fear, the agony, the swirling confusion of misery. He prayed for the darkness and not even the worried sound of V’s voice had been enough to stop him from collapsing in exhaustion to his wounds. 

—

Ray did not want to relive that day. But, he could remember when he found the use of his weak voice, and demanded to know where she was, where in the world had Lila gone, she had just been there with him, in his arms, and now he could feel not a thing. There had been a reason why he couldn’t feel her in his arms.  And, he remembered, that grim look in V’s eyes, as he looked to the right and Ray forced his head to move despite the screaming, burning, the pain was blinding—

“Ray?” He was shaken from his thoughts, pulled from his memory as her voice called out to him. Ray looked to the voice and saw Lila, peering up at him with the eye that wasn’t covered by a cloth patch that she’d made herself. The burns had done some damage to her vision and while she still had some use left in her right eye… 

She found it easier to avoid using it. That and too much sunlight would induce a migraine which wouldn’t go away for hours if she allowed herself to strain with both of her eyes. Lila had been so fortunate that she hadn’t lost it at all. That would be his fault too, as well as the lingering burns that covered her back, and rose from her neck to her eye, which was covered mostly by her shirt.  Not that anyone would know about those other than himself or V. She hadn’t died that horrible day and neither had he. But, they both were covered with the horrid marks of what happened. 

There was no denying they had suffered greatly. 

Normally, she would have hidden such marks behind the tresses of long hair but most of it had… it had slowly grown back after what had been burned had to be shaved away, anyway. Now the curls puffed out below her ears, just enough that she could hide behind her locks if she wanted but she hadn’t done that in such a long time.

Rather, they had been isolated from the rest of the world and not forced to face anyone but each other in recovery. V had thought it had been best, they needed care and he needed to get them out of Seoul as soon as possible. Choi Saejoong was always a threat, he’d whispered. Being wealthy and from a family that had plenty of money, it was easy for him to take care of them. 

You just had to know who to pay and who to trust. 

“You look nervous,” she murmured. Her fingers tentatively brushing against his unmarked cheek with her thumb. “Is everything okay?”

She was worried about him and yet he knew that she was just as incredibly nervous and uneasy about the rest of the day. After all, it had been two years since everything had gone down and there was no telling how it would go knowing that they would be showing their face to everyone. All of the RFA and all of the people that they once knew. 

V thought that it was time, and while Ray agreed to some degree that he felt okay with this choice, there was a pit in his stomach when he thought about it. Thoughts about the RFA and what they would think when they knew what Lila had gone back for in the first place for the hacker and how Saeyoung would react knowing that he’d been the hacker and that things weren’t okay. 

_ Guilt _ . As well as some other things. Even though he had been able to work on a lot of those feelings and he had been able to understand what had been done to him and what was wrong, it did not wipe away the pain or the weight of what he did for Mint Eye. Seeing Lila was a reminder of that and yet, he had to admit that he didn’t want to forget. 

It was better that he didn’t forget because he never wanted to fall for something like that ever again. 

He feared if he forgot he may make a mistake again. He never wanted to do that. The cost of his sins had got them both scars that would forever mar their bodies but his were a reminder to never forget what he did or what happened. 

His scars were a mark of his suffering, his survival, and his sins. His therapist would tell him that he would do better to not blame himself for what happened but Ray knew that he would never be able to shake away the guilt. 

“I could ask you the same thing, you know,” he said, simply. “You’re trembling.”

“Am I?” She looked down at their hands to see that it was a fact. “I guess I am. It’s just a lot to think about… I don’t know if I can… I mean. I don’t know, Ray. So much has changed and I kind of left without telling them what I was doing… I guess I don’t want to think they felt guilty for this. They weren’t the ones that ran away. I was the one who chose to—”

_ Go back. _

“It's okay,” even if it wasn’t. “We’ve talked about this. So much of that was… out of our control, you know? But, it happened, and it’s over. She’s…  _ She’s  _ not even around anymore, either. V said that once they learned the real truth about Rika and Mint Eye, she was locked away and the key was tossed along with it.”

Rika had revealed herself to them after she had been pushed into a corner. She lashed out when V did not react the way she wanted, and she had told them everything she’d believed and tried to trick them at the last minute. Every single one of them turned against her and told her that she was wrong. Lila had seen how quickly she’d crumbled to pieces. 

There had been nowhere for her to turn once she revealed herself to everyone. The cult might have been evacuated but most of the members had been lost without the guidance of the Savior, and since she had given no orders to anyone of the disciples, it had only been a matter of time until most of the members were rounded up. 

She accepted and admitted everything to the authorities. 

Neither Ray nor Lila had expected to hear those words, but she had, and she was currently locked tightly away where she could not repeat her actions ever again. The last V had heard on the matter, there was the word that she was in intensive therapy for her mental health as she served her sentence out. None of the RFA… 

Had the capacity to forgive her for what she had done. 

There was no mending to be done to a relationship where someone had destroyed the lives of countless people and willingly fought to persist in her path of torture. Though, many of them had seemed to, at the very least accept that there was nothing that they could have done about the situation due to the length at which she went to hide her crimes and her true self. 

She was put away for what she’d done and if the universe was kind, maybe one day she would be able to overcome the agony in her heart that had hurt her long before she lashed out at others, but she would likely no longer had a place with the RFA or those that she once called her friends. That was simply the way things would be. 

Of course, none of them knew what happened to the hacker, or Lila. It didn’t take a lot of speculation on their parts to think that Lila had run off to find the hacker after she had begged them not to leave him behind, and ultimately went back for him without any of them with her as some back-up. 

It wasn’t like she had time to explain all of it. 

She had promised V that she wouldn’t reveal a word of her suspicion of what she thought of Ray and Seven’s relationship as he struggled with what elixir that had been forced into his system. So, when she ran off, that was the last that the RFA knew of her or the hacker. 

After securing that the two of them were in a safe place, V had returned to face what he had long been running away from. It was what Lila had tried to convince him of over and over the more that the two of them spoke to one another. The more she learned, the more she pressed Lila to seek help from the others and admit he was in too deep. 

He took responsibility for his actions, the lies that he told and how he took the burden of this secret without letting anyone else help him. However, by being honest about it, he had to come clean with everyone about everything that had occurred. That meant everything that he’d known, and that also meant talking about Ray. 

However, by the time that V returned to make things right, things were less than ideal. 

—

Ray was out of earshot of herself and V. He had been gone for many weeks, and since she’d made a point of not looking at any technology or getting near anything that would tell her about what could be happening, neither she nor Ray knew what V had been dealing with. It took a while for Ray to feel okay to talk to V in the first place, and it had only been Lila that had been able to get him to listen to the facts. 

He was often still sick and prone to fits of despair and confusion, but he was looking much better after months here compared to the beginning. V said that he had promised to keep Ray safe and that he was going to make due on that promise he made after his failure. She knew that he intended to keep that promise. The look in his eyes was too real. 

“She did what?”

V sucked in a breath but nodded his head. “She confessed everything we’ve been hiding about the twins to the media after Saeyoung confronted her. I should have stayed behind to make things right from the start, otherwise what happened wouldn’t have escalated. Your blood and his was found in the rubble of the building.” 

She looked down at her lap, hands carefully folded in front of herself to hide the unease. “So… they’d think we were dead. No, they must think we’re dead. Seven, I mean… Saeyoung would have no other reason to go after her like that. I don’t… I don’t understand. Why would she reveal the truth about them like that?” 

“Guilt, perhaps,” V offered, but even he was at a loss for the reasoning. “I should’ve told them that you two were safe from the start the minute I knew. But, there wasn’t enough time to ensure Ray’s safety or your safety from Saejoong if I let matters dissolve. I regret not telling Saeyoung sooner, had it not been for Jumin or the others…” 

It went without saying what had occurred. 

Lila didn’t have to ask what had occurred with Saeyoung. She hadn’t known him for very long but she one thing about him. He had done everything he’d ever done to protect his brother from the start and his heart was interconnected with his twin’s. Ray still… had a lot of messy feelings about his brother as it was. 

He’d better understood the manipulation now but he tried to avoid talking about Saeyoung as much as he could. 

“The RFA is a family,” Lila said, carefully. “They look out for each other no matter what happens and no matter how hard things get, they always stick together like glue. If I learned anything in the time I’d spent with them… it’s that they don’t give up on each other, and I don’t think they’ve given up on you, either.”

V seemed grateful for her words. At least, that’s what she thought. He shook his head, knowing that there was a lot ahead that needed to be taken care of. “I should have listened to what you asked of me the first time we discussed this matter.” 

“You tried to make amends by going back, to tell the truth, even if you took the burden on your own for such a long time, V,” her eyes flickered in the direction of the boy that was sitting outside watching the clouds roll by. “I think it takes a lot of courage to be honest with the people that are close to you after something out of your control happens. I mean, isn’t that why we wound up here in the first place?” 

She gestured to the expanse of land around them in the middle of what felt like nowhere as far as the eye could see. They weren’t actually in the middle of nowhere, it only felt that way due to the remote nature of the house that they were staying in. The safest place that V could move the two of them to ensure that nothing would happen with Saejoong overseas. 

Lila offered the safety of her household. She might have run away from her problems but she knew that her grandparents would always have open doors no matter what happened.

She’d returned after not saying a word to them for months looking far different from the way that she left. Her hair was now short and the scars from the explosion were not easily covered. Neither was the fact that she’d brought along two men. 

Still, her family welcomed her home. 

Facing her fears about her family was nothing compared to what she had gone through at Mint Eye, and it had been much easier to face a small spat compared to the grand scale of the twists and turns of the ill-fated cult. Everything that she’d feared was gone like the water that would continue to flow down the ever-expansive river of life. 

That fight with her big sister was water under the bridge. 

It was almost funny how she thought that was the end of her world when there was so much more to the world that she had been naive of until she met Ray and the RFA. “So,” she returned her attention to him. “You wouldn’t have brought this up if something drastic hadn’t happened. So, what happened next? What did you tell them?” 

“The truth,” he answered, quietly. “Everything about what happened and everything about you and Ray.” 

There was no denying anything if they had the blood to prove everything. If Jumin had known that it was her blood, then he could have easily searched and contacted the right people to see if she was alive or not. She wasn’t a Korean citizen. It would be a bigger mess if there were more people involved in the group that hailed from different nations. 

Lila stiffened. Saeyoung… the others… she hadn’t even thought that they would miss her, or that they would think much after she was gone. They never even knew what she looked like, or who she was. Only Saeyoung knew, and it only hit her now how the redhead must have felt when he heard that not only had Ray been injured, but she had as well. 

How would you react in that situation? You had no only been fighting your brother, but when you went to rescue V but the helpless girl who pleaded with you to rescue the hacker, and instead of doing that, you said you’d have to try again later. The girl runs off in the dead of night and tries to save the hacker before he got rid of himself, and by the time it hits you that the hacker is your brother—

All signs pointed to him being dead. 

All because you couldn’t listen to what someone told you. 

She sucked in a breath, then asked. “V, did you tell them that we’re alive, then? That’s what I’m asking you here. Do they know?” 

“I couldn’t avoid telling them the truth any longer, not after what they went through. Yes, I told them that I had moved the two of you to safety after I found you in the rubble,” he answered, and when she met his mint eyes, she knew that he was telling the truth. “I would like to discuss this with Ray as well, as the minute I told them of your well-being, everyone wanted to see the two of you.” 

Lila looked back at Ray. He had come a long way from where they started, sure, but was he ready to face his brother? Was he ready to know that the entire country had turned against Saejoong and not only was he free, but Saeyoung was as well?

She’d never thought that she meant anything to the RFA, she was just a stranger that happened to find herself with them. But, to hear that they wanted to see her again?“Ray, I understand,” she said, softly. “But, me? They hardly even knew me.” 

“You have your way of leaving your mark on people that cannot be disregarded, Lila,” he said. His voice was calm against the pool of nerves in her stomach. “They well understand what you were trying to do from the start. You wanted to help everyone and you were the one that refused to leave him behind. Saeyoung, in particular, wants to see you most of all, as well as Ray. There’s a lot that he wants to tell you… to thank you for, many things that I still cannot stop expressing my gratitude for. This was never your problem, to begin with, but you refused to give up on anyone.” 

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I made a promise to Ray that I would never leave him behind, I don’t break my promises when I make them.” 

“I understand.” 

“...I suppose we should prepare for a… reunion, huh?”

“Only when you’re ready. Only when _ he’s _ ready.” 

—

“I know, and I know we don’t want to talk about it with all of them today. Today isn’t about that, or her, it’s about you,” she gripped him tighter then, as the mention of Rika was enough to make her skin crawl as well. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to see him,” he said, carefully. It was a lot to think about. He looked at the building for a long pause and then shut his eyes. “Don’t downplay your contributions, either. V said that they wanted to see you too. I mean, they got to talk to you back then… and when I did, it wasn’t exactly...” 

_ Yeah.  _

They were both working on this. 

Lila sighed. She knew that he was right. They both glanced at the building that V had entered first to go and greet everyone and prepare them mentally for what was about to happen. It was also good to let him breathe and talk to Jumin. Everyone had to admit that they needed to talk about what happened, and Lila was far too happy to hear everyone had started working on their mental health. 

Therapy wasn’t a shameful thing, neither was reaching out for help when you needed it. He grasped at her hand and pulled her into his embrace. So much had happened but that didn’t mean that it was the end. This was the beginning. 

“We can wait. I mean, what’re five minutes to two years anyway?”

Ray cracked a weak smile, but it was a smile all the same. It made him feel better about the nerves that were jumping in his veins. She was trying to help him and he appreciated that. Lila managed a laugh. It made her heart feel less strained. They were two broken vases that had been mended back together but that didn’t mean that they were begotten. 

Cracked didn’t mean ugly, nor did it mean that they didn’t deserve happiness. The human experience was one that was defined by the bumps and marks they gained by living, and this was just another mark on the list of many things to come. 

She nudged her face against his shoulder and sighed. “And you know what, call me greedy but I like being able to be with you alone like this. You’re handsome all dressed up like this.”

His cheeks felt the heat return.  _ Wow _ , it had been some time since she made him feel stunned and at a loss for words. He couldn’t help but to look at her too, see her way that she seemed more at ease back in something bathed in pink and ruffles instead of sweats and stolen sweaters. Something about how she liked the feeling of something he’d worn much better than her clothes. 

“You too,” he muttered.

“Being honest tonight,  _ are w _ e? You know, I was happy about the fact that you wanted to match tonight. You know, that’s something that boyfriends and girlfriends do when they want to make a big statement.” 

Although Ray was still tentative when it came to romantic displays, he had gotten more comfortable in the fact that she cared for him and that she wanted to be close to him. Still, it was easier when she was quiet about it. Whenever she tucked herself into his arms or held his hand tight, he knew that he could handle that. 

“Is that so?” he asked. Quietly, he pressed his lips against her forehead. The faint hum of chatter from instead had caught his attention. They wouldn’t be able to avoid it forever but he felt better about it knowing that she was here by his side. Everything was a lot easier when you weren’t alone with your thoughts. 

“Are you okay with that?” 

Ray knew that he was. He nodded his head, “As long as you’re with me, I know that I can handle anything.” 

“Shall we join the party, then?” she smiled. 


End file.
